Clarity
by black.k.kat
Summary: There can be no happy end to this story. It starts with death and only runs in one direction, and for all of Naruto's strength and will, he cannot change that. Those who bear the Sharingan are cursed with misery, it seems, and not all the resolve in the world will alter their fate.


**Rating:** T

 **Warnings:** Past major character death, slash/yaoi, Naruto angst, Kakashi angst, etc.

 **Word Count:** ~4400 (complete)

 **Pairings:** vaguely Sasuke/Naruto-ish

 **Summary:** There can be no happy end to this story. It starts with death and only runs in one direction, and for all of Naruto's strength and will, he cannot change that. Those who bear the Sharingan are cursed with misery, it seems, and not all the resolve in the world will alter their fate.

 **Notes:** This would be why I should never be allowed to read the Wave arc. I get _feels,_ and it never ends well for anyone involved. Possibly there will be more in this universe, but I'm currently uncertain.

(Please excuse whatever grammar errors/typos you find; I'll come back and slay them later, but at the moment I have about 47 seconds before my flight leaves and can't afford to miss it. This was written in an airport waiting room without benefit of spell-check, and I truly apologize for any resulting idiocy. Title is from the Zedd song [featuring Foxes] by the same name.)

* * *

 _ **Clarity**_

The Kakashi who has returned from Wave is a man decades older than the one who left, Sarutobi thinks, watching the Copy-Nin slump into his chair. Once, maybe, he would have berated Kakashi for his informality and sloppiness.

Not today. Not when one of Kakashi's students is in the hospital, and another in a grave.

"Forgive me, Kakashi," he says gravely, folding his hands in front of him. "But your request is denied. I'm sorry, but with circumstances as they are, you are the best suited to helping him through this time."

Kakashi presses one hand over his slanted hitai-ate, and if his fingers curl like claws, desperate and helpless, Sarutobi isn't about to mention it. "I… _can't_ ," he protests, but there's no spark in his voice, none of the habitual lazy pride he's (in)famous for. Only anger and vulnerability and a naked sort of grief, old but un-faded. "Hokage-sama, surely someone else—"

"There's no one else." Sarutobi regards the other man, not much above helplessness himself, though he'll never let it show. "Kakashi, I understand your feelings. I truly do. But there is not one single person in the entire world who is will be able to help that boy better than you can if you simply _try._ Were there anyone else, I would not even ask. But there isn't."

Kakashi is still hiding his face, concealing what little of his expression shows between his hitai-ate and mask. His breathing is ragged, and he's still on the edge of chakra exhaustion; the mission is only just finished with, and he's had no time at all to rest. Unfortunately, Sarutobi can't give him any, not with things as they are.

"It was—" The younger man's voice breaks, and a shudder racks his lean frame. "It was like the cave all over again. I wasn't—wasn't fast enough. I shouldn't have left them to fight alone. I should have…"

But even Kakashi's genius brain can't think of a way out of that situation, can't pick out a solution no matter how he tries. And he's tried so very hard, Sarutobi knows. With everything in him, and then with all the bits that he can't quite spare. Exhaustion of both the body and the soul have left their marks on him, carved deep lines into his being. Sarutobi hurts for him, aches for Minato's student who was all but his son, but there's nothing he can do or say that will make this better.

"Go," he orders softly, instead. "Visit your students. I'm not going to transfer Naruto to anyone else's care, so perhaps it would be best if you explained the situation to him fully."

His heart aches for Naruto, too, for the child who is all but his grandson. For the brilliant, enthusiastic genin who left two weeks ago and the worn, shaken shinobi who returned this morning with one teammate lost forever.

Wave was supposed to be a simple mission, a milk run. Team 7 was never supposed to encounter missing-nin, and especially _those_ missing-nin. But all the experience and wisdom and power in Sarutobi's possession couldn't help him foresee this. Nothing could, and now the brightness of one unendingly hopeful boy has been snuffed out.

Kakashi came back from Wave one student short, haunted by memories of the past he's still recovering from.

Sakura came back from Wave shell-shocked and reeling, a teammate dead, her childish innocence shattered.

Naruto came back from Wave having lost his best friend and rival, the blood of his first kill on his hands, with two new eyes and a grim promise made to a dying comrade.

Sarutobi knows Naruto, how he thinks and how he reacts, and this quiet, withdrawn mood scares him. Because he knows Naruto's parents, and though more often than not it is Kushina's vivacity that shines through, Naruto is just as much Minato's son.

And when Minato acted like that, like he was thinking very hard about the course of the future and debating what steps he would take—

That was when his genius truly emerged.

As Hokage, Sarutobi has already received and read the mission reports. Sakura's was the first in, and she had recorded Sasuke's last words. A gift and a request, given in the same breath—Sasuke's Sharingan eyes for his teammate, and vengeance for the Uchiha Clan in return. Naruto had given his word, and Sarutobi has no doubt that he'll keep it—for all his new, grieving reserve, Naruto is still Naruto, and nothing is more important to him than a promise.

But there are secrets that Uchiha Itachi holds that cannot be revealed, for the sake of Konoha. There are things that Sarutobi cannot allow to come to light, no matter how much he loves Naruto like his own flesh and blood.

Even as Kakashi pushes slowly to his feet and makes for the door, Sarutobi steeples his hands on his desk and wearily lets his forehead drop to rest against them. He hates this, hates his duty and the entire damned village and Shimura Danzo for putting him in this position. Hates the Uchiha for their planned coup and Itachi for allowing himself to be manipulated by Danzo, Momochi Zabuza for being a mercenary and Zabuza's apprentice for not showing one ounce more mercy on the bridge. Hates himself, because he is going to have to look Naruto in his new eyes and smile and act as though he supports him, even as he sabotages him from the shadows.

There can be no happy end to this story. It starts with death and only runs in one direction, and for all of Naruto's strength and will, he cannot change that. Those who bear the Sharingan are cursed with misery, it seems, and not all the resolve in the world will alter their fate.

* * *

He fractures in clean, predictable lines that are all the more agonizing for their inevitability.

There is a hole in him, a space. It is in exactly the shape that no one else can fill, a shape that Naruto knows from his very first awakening back in Konoha will never be filled in his lifetime. It gapes and aches like his heart carved out, as though someone has reached into the very core of him and stolen something vital to life. There is pain and regret and grief and above all else there is _loss_.

Naruto has never lost someone before. There has never been anyone to lose, until now, and Naruto is not the kind of person who can regret even a moment's care but—

But sometimes he wonders how different he would be, without this hole inside him.

There is no forgetting. There is no moving on. He walks through Konoha and every step seems to ring hollowly, as though the people he can see are nothing but ghosts, and he is the only one who still exists. Spots of brightness linger, little moments caught up in the morass of time that still stand out; there, they passed in the crowd. There, Naruto dawdled a handful of seconds to watch him buy tomatoes from a farmer. There, Naruto saw him sitting in the sunset, a day after his clan died. There, they had a D-rank, and though Sasuke swore Naruto was a moron for framing grunt work as a challenge they still competed over who could pick up the most trash.

The name hurts. It stings through him like the slash of a kunai, gaping edges that refuse to be sewn closed and blood leaking in an inexorable trickle through his chest. It is a knife in the gut, the brain, the heart whenever he looks in a mirror and sees black eyes staring back instead of blue.

 _Sasuke_ , he thinks, gripping the edges of the bathroom counter as he stares. Eerie, such stark red-and-black against his tanned skin and blond hair. Far better suited to pale skin and raven hair, a half-smirk of reluctant amusement and a gaze that focuses onward, outward, on some distant moment of revenge. _Sasuke, Sasuke, Sasuke_.

It hurts each time.

 _Why? Why me?_

 _How should I know, idiot? My body just moved on its own._

He cries, when he thinks of that. Great, heaving sobs that tear him apart and leave only fragments behind. Pure grief greater than any he's felt before. This isn't Iruka taking a shuriken for him, or the absence of parents he's never met. This is Sasuke, dead because he took a blow meant for Naruto, and survived just long enough to ask one thing of him.

 _That man…my brother…I told myself I wouldn't die until I'd killed him._

 _Naruto, don't you die too._

This is Sasuke, buried with the rest of his clan, his eyes now Naruto's. His revenge now Naruto's, because Naruto was willing to make any promise, and that's the one Sasuke asked for.

 _Will you achieve my goal? Avenge my clan?_

 _Yes_ , he'd said, because Sasuke was dying, and there wasn't anything Naruto wouldn't do for him at that moment.

And Sasuke had smiled, just faintly. Just the barest curve of lips as he used the last of his strength to whisper, _Kakashi. Your eye—can you give mine to Naruto?_

He cries, and it hurts, echoing in that empty place inside him. For all that he's empty he seems full of tears, unable to fight off or push them back for long. They only come when he's alone, overwhelmed by memories or the very idea of what he has to do. Revenge for every Uchiha, against Uchiha Itachi, the greatest of a clan famous for their strength. Revenge for Sasuke, who wanted nothing more than to be the hand of vengeance, but who stepped in front of a blow meant for Naruto and died for it instead.

There's no way, nothing inside of Naruto that can let such a sacrifice go unanswered. There is nothing in him that can ignore Sasuke's last request, his last words. The look in his eyes as he stared at Naruto one last time, bare seconds before Kakashi, hands glowing green, took his sight forever.

No more blue eyes. Just black-and-red, shared between the two of them. Shared the way Naruto now shares Sasuke's dream, clings to it to fill up the emptiness within him.

He walks through a Konoha that feels empty regardless of the bustling streets. People still glare, still whisper, still pull small children out of his path, but for the first time in twelve years Naruto doesn't register it. They fear him, fear the Kyuubi, but there's blood on Naruto's hands now, and he regrets it but he wouldn't change it. Does that make him the monster they call him? Maybe it does. But it doesn't matter anymore. It isn't something he has the time or energy or space in his heart to focus on.

He doesn't know how long it will take him to give Sasuke his revenge. Years, probably; Uchiha Itachi is a genius no one currently in Konoha can match, except possibly the Sandaime. Maybe not even him, and something inside of Naruto cowers at the idea. But he's never been a coward, even when it would have served him better, and he isn't going to let it stop him.

Sasuke's apartment is empty, completely clean and mostly bare, with only a handful of things out of place to show that anyone lived there. Naruto hovers in the doorway, one hand clutching the knob, and stares for a long moment. There's the expected Uchiha blue and black, but…other colors appear as well. A red blanket folded at the foot of the bed. A stack of action novels with cheerfully chaotic covers. A few training manuals, a stack of jutsu scrolls still laid out on the table. An orange mug with _bastard_ scrawled on it in Naruto's chicken-scratch hand, eye-catching amidst plain white of the other dishes. It was a birthday gift, Naruto remembers, feeling something twinge and clench in his chest. The best he could think of, because he knew Sasuke hated orange but—

He scrubs at his eyes, because he's cried too much already. Crying won't ever change anything, and Naruto learned that by the time he was four years old.

His intention had been to pack up Sasuke's things, get the apartment ready to be cleared out. He'd even asked the Hokage if he could keep the boxes, and cleared out space in his closet for them. Sarutobi had agreed, eyes tired and sad, because Sasuke has no relatives left to claim what he left behind.

Instead, Naruto just…looks. Stares, for a long minute that stretches out into hours as he sits with his back against the door. The pain redoubles, settles in with barbed claws that Naruto suspects will never release, but still he lingers.

This was Sasuke's home. Those were his books, and his dishes, and his bed. And now he'll never use them again. His name is carved on the Memorial Stone. His body lies in a grave on his father's right hand. Outside of this apartment and the eyes Naruto now bears, there is nothing left of Uchiha Sasuke in this world, and never before has Naruto felt that realization so clearly.

He clambers to his feet, long after the sun has gone dark and the streets outside are empty, and casts one last glance back at the neat room before he slips out the door. If…if he takes more missions, does D-ranks on his own each day, he'll be able to pay Sasuke's rent as well as his own. If he works harder, does more, he'll be able to keep this piece of Sasuke in the world, and that's more than motivation enough.

Naruto doesn't cry again. He talks to the Hokage, who reluctantly agrees. He takes missions, works until he feels like collapsing, trains until it would be too dark to see his own hand in front of his face if he didn't have Sasuke's Sharingan, and then he goes home and sleeps so he can do the same again the next day. And then—

And then.

And then he wakes one morning with the sun already high, body aching and every limb a hundred times heavier than it should be. Slowly, carefully, he turns over in the bed, and finds there's a boy sitting on the edge of the mattress. A boy in a blue shirt with the Uchiha crest on the back, black hair falling around his face as he watches Naruto stir. His expression is sad and a little regretful, his eyes fathomless black, and Naruto stares at him and feels like he's about to break.

"Sasuke," he whispers.

"Dobe," Sasuke answers, and even though Naruto hasn't cried in weeks now he feels like he could, like he should. It burns at his throat and behind his eyes, curls up through him like a twist of fire and makes it almost impossible to breathe. His voice catches in his throat, tangled up with a sob, and he clenches his hands into fists so he won't reach out and touch.

"I'm sorry," he says, and it shatters like glass in his mouth. "I'm sorry," and he's said it before, repeated it on the bridge until he thought he'd lose his voice, but Sasuke died for him, and it can never be enough. "I'm so sorry, Sasuke, I—"

But Sasuke shakes his head, leaning forward. He doesn't quite reach far enough to touch but—

But. But it's Sasuke and Sasuke's hand and right now Naruto doesn't care if he's a ghost or a figment of his imagination or proof that Naruto's sanity is slipping away into the desolation of unending grief. Naruto reaches back, blindly seizing those long, pale fingers, and is hardly surprised at all when Sasuke's hand passes through his like mist. Like the mist that choked the bridge right up until Naruto and the Kyuubi together drove a kunai through Zabuza's heart.

"You're being lazy, dobe," Sasuke says, and Naruto looks up at him, trying not to shake at the sight of those familiar eyes— _his_ eyes, now. They're intent, unwavering, fixed on Naruto's face as though Sasuke will never look away. "Get up. If you don't train, you'll be dead last forever."

Naruto wants to protest, wants to tell Sasuke that he aches all over and his head is throbbing and his stomach is churning, but.

Sasuke died for him. Sasuke left his dream in Naruto's hands, and there's no way to accomplish anything by crying or whining.

He takes a breath, rubs his face, and nods just once. Then he pushes to his feet and reaches for his clothes.

Sasuke died for him. Sasuke gave him his eyes and his goal and one last, faint smile before his eyes closed for the final time, and Naruto will never, ever betray that.

The ghost watches him dress, watches the way his hands stay steady as he ties his hitai-ate on, and then nods once.

When Naruto looks back at him, he's gone.

* * *

Naruto puts himself in the hospital twice in the next month.

Each time, Sasuke is there when he opens his eyes. A pale ghost leaning over him, dark eyes steady and expression drawn, but each time Naruto takes a step forward there's just the faintest spark in his eyes.

They're hard to get used to, Sasuke's eyes. Naruto is used to more chakra than he can ever use, a lack of control that allows him to be reckless and wild with his jutsus. But no more; the Sharingan drains him, constantly active and dragging at his reserves. There's no way to shut them off, and Naruto doesn't think he would even if he could.

(What if he forgets one day? What if there's a moment when he doesn't remember Sasuke's pale, still form, the weight of a body going cold in his arms? Isn't that a betrayal greater than any? Wouldn't that be unforgivable?)

Kakashi says it's unlikely anyone else would survive the drain, that the Kyuubi and Naruto's own vast reserves are the only reason why he hasn't already died from chakra exhaustion. He slouches where he stands, hitai-ate tilted down across his own Sharingan eye, and doesn't explain.

Naruto looks at the grief written into every line of his sensei's face, and doesn't ask him to.

Sasuke, quiet and watchful, turns his dark eyes between the two of them, and says, "He'll train you."

Naruto already knows that.

He drags himself out of the hospital room three hours later, and when he staggers into the clearing where they first took the bell test, Kakashi is leaning against the center post, hands tucked into his pockets, looking at Naruto with mismatched eyes.

"The trick," he says, low and intent, "is learning how to _see_."

Taking a breath, Naruto reaches up to press a hand over one Sharingan. Already he can understand what Kakashi means; there's so _much_ that the Sharingan catches that Naruto, unobservant as he is, can hardly catalogue, let alone use. Reading chakra and movements and tiny tells is awesome, but only if he can _see_ it.

He nods. Kakashi looks him over for a long moment, then nods in return. "Learn to see, and then I'll teach you how to move."

There's a blur, too fast for Naruto to register, and before he even feels the blow he slams back into a tree, ears ringing with the force of it.

"Try again," Kakashi says implacably, and Naruto struggles to his feet.

One more try.

One more.

Another.

Again.

And every time, Naruto looks at the boy in the blue shirt, standing watch beneath the tree, and gets back up.

* * *

"Two years?" Sarutobi studies the paperwork he just received, then lifts his eyes to regard the man on the other side of his desk. "That seems…excessive. And to leave so soon?"

Kakashi doesn't quite look up from his book, though Sarutobi knows it's more for show than anything. The Copy-Nin shrugs lazily, belying the dark shadows under his eyes and the lines of stress visible on his face, and says, "I have no team, Hokage-sama. There's no need to stay for the Chuunin Exams if I'm not entering my genin, and Sakura is occupying herself with learning medical ninjutsu, which I can't teach her. And…" He hesitates.

Sarutobi does not need his seventy years of experience as a shinobi to read the thought that passes like quicksilver behind his eyes. _I know unhealthy coping mechanisms when I see them_.

Naruto talks to Sasuke. Not just in his sleep, but awake. He hold conversations, vents frustrations, apologizes—never quite where others can hear, but not subtly enough to escape Kakashi's ears, or those of the ANBU Sarutobi sets to watch him from time to time. There is no lingering before graves or carved names, no wasting away, but Naruto is working harder than Sarutobi has ever seen in a genin. To a dangerous degree, he fears, though he hasn't quite been able to bring himself to stop the boy just yet.

Kakashi's book thumps shut. "I had ANBU," he says bluntly, holding the Hokage's gaze. "But Naruto is like Gai. If you put him in ANBU, he'll just break. Give me two years, Hokage-sama, and I can make sure he's strong enough to survive."

 _To survive what?_ Sarutobi wonders bleakly. _Killing an innocent man? Shattering the foundation of lies upon which I have built my second reign?_

He won't regret it, if the truth comes to light. He's always known that someday it must, no matter what Danzo thinks. But Naruto is like a surrogate grandson to him, and he fears the boy's hatred. Fears what Danzo will do, to keep the truth hidden. At least on a training trip Naruto will be safely out of the man's reach.

Sarutobi signs the forms, pen steady across the paper. "Two years," he agrees resolutely. "But not a day more, Kakashi."

"Hokage-sama." Kakashi bows, and Sarutobi pretends not to see the relief on his face. It isn't Naruto alone who needs an escape. "I'll let them know immediately."

As the man heads for the door, Sarutobi doesn't call him back no matter how he wishes to. He doesn't wish him good luck, doesn't offer words of caution because he has none to spare. Only a hope, bone-deep and desperate, that this is the right choice to make.

* * *

Naruto curls on the floor, wood smooth beneath his cheek, and watches as Sasuke takes a seat on the bed. He looks…more solid, if only slightly. Almost tangible, though Naruto doesn't dare reach out and check.

"Are you going to come with us?" he asks, curling his fingers until his nails dig into the floor. "It's—Kakashi-sensei promised that by the time we get back, I'll be able to use your eyes. I'll be better."

Sasuke gives him one of those smiles that was always ghostly, even when he was fully alive. Just the barest tilt of his lips, like someone will yell at him for smiling instead of smirking. "I know you will, dobe," he says, and though it sounds dismissive Naruto can tell it's…not. "I wouldn't have given you my eyes if you were completely hopeless."

"Only a little hopeless?" Naruto asks, smiling himself. He stretches out a hand, but stops a bare centimeter shy of Sasuke's sandal.

Those dark eyes are warm, and there's a flicker in them, a moment's emotion that's so very hauntingly like what Naruto saw on the bridge, that last second before Kakashi's hand covered his eyes.

(He wonders, sometimes, when Konoha feels particularly empty, when the image in the mirror is particularly unbearable, whether he's going crazy. No one else sees Sasuke like this. No one else talks to the ghost of their dead best friend the way he does. Even Kakashi, who lingers by the memorial to talk to another stupidly self-sacrificing Uchiha, restrains himself to those stolen moments. Naruto sees Sasuke more often than not, now, and…well. He just wonders.

He can never bring himself to actually care.)

"Always, dobe," Sasuke says, reaching back, and Naruto can't tell which question he's supposed to be answering. For three endless heartbeats his hand lingers above Naruto's head, a centimeter above bright hair, and then he gives another faint half-smile and fades away.

"See you later, teme," Naruto whispers, rolling onto his back, and closes his eyes.

For one half-second, he almost thinks he feels fingers running through his hair.


End file.
